Retail merchants selling products at a physical store often make great efforts to attract larger numbers of customers to the store, in order to increase sales. Each customer that shops in a retail store represents a potential purchase, and each purchase that is actually made increases the sales volume, and thereby the profits, of the retail merchant. Retail merchants have an incentive to process as many customer purchase transactions as possible during a given time frame in order to maximize sales.
A retail establishment's potential sales are necessarily limited by the number of customers willing to make purchases at the store. However, sales can also be limited by the amount of time required to process customer purchases at the retail establishment's sales registers. Each customer purchase requires a certain nontrivial amount of time to complete; for example, in a typical credit card transaction, a customer places items to be purchased on the counter, a sales clerk scans each item and totals the cost on the register, the customer locates a credit card, the sales clerk swipes the credit card, the payment is processed, the customer signs a receipt, the sales clerk places the items in bags, and each of these actions takes time.
As a result, there is a limit to the number of customer purchases that can be completed per register, per unit of time in a retail establishment. If more than that number of customers are in the store and willing to make purchases, they may have to wait in line due to backlogs at the registers. This often results in lost sales, as customers become frustrated in line and decide to leave the store without making their purchases rather than wait in line. Merchandise can also easily become misplaced when customers abandon their items and leave the store without returning the items to their proper display locations. This creates an additional burden on the retail establishment to identify misplaced items and return them to their proper locations.
Point-of-sale backlogs can also reduce sales by causing fewer customers to be attracted to shop at the retail establishment. If customers anticipate frustrating experiences waiting in long register lines, some may decide against visiting the store in the first place. This can be a common occurrence especially at peak shopping times or during special sale events, for example during holiday seasons. Retail establishments may organize special sale events and promotions in an effort to attract large numbers of customers to the store; however, the increased sales potential offered by such efforts may be diminished by the effects of time-consuming point-of-sale procedures.